The Woman Who Watched – Entry 4

Dr. Fisk told me to start keeping a diary of my experiences, and to summarize anything that I believe has been important up to this point.

After I unknowingly mangled my neighbor’s face, impeding his vision forever, I became aware of a new presence in my life. I came to know this man as Dr. Fisk…I considered him at the time and still consider him to be my own personal savior. He came to me at the darkest of hours, offering a beacon of light. I have begun therapy sessions with him, and I know my neighbor has too.

I sometimes watch the doctor as he conducts sessions with Patrick. Sometimes they are in plain view, and sometimes they are hidden in one of the inner rooms of Patrick’s place. I find it comforting to know Dr. Fisk is near by. I feel terrible about what I have done to poor Patrick though. He clearly lives in fear since the accident…I still don’t particularly understand what happened and why he was here that day, but Dr. Fisk has insisted that we both refer to the incident as an accident, which I am grateful for.

Patrick screams like I have never heard any human scream before. It’s even worse to know that I am the direct cause of his terrors. Terrors that seem so different, yet so similar, to my own.

Behind My Eyelids: Entry V

February 4, 2013

Dr. Fisk returned my call! And what’s more, he says I imagined the entire session. He never even came to my house to conduct the experiment. He had to cancel due to a “family emergency.” I imagined the whole ordeal–the hypnotism, the disappearance, the blood puddle, and the smell. What an active imagination I have! Although I know I should be worried about my state of mind, I am mostly relieved that my beloved doctor, my savior of sorts, is back in my life. I feel rejuvenated and alive for the first time in months. With the doctor, I can accomplish anything!

Behind My Eyelids: Entry IV

February 4, 2012

Where do I begin? I feel as though it has been an eternity since my last entry. Dr. Fisk come over a few days ago to conduct the experiment. He proceeded to hypnotize me and walk me through an encounter with one of my visions.  I do not remember what  I experienced while hypnotized, only that when I woke up, I was completely alone. I called Dr. Fisk’s name numerous times, each time growing more and more afraid. I still have not heard from him, and fear that something terrible has happened.  Since that day, I have found disturbing clues throughout my house.

While crawling to the kitchen (Since the accident, I crawl everywhere, out of fear I will run into something), my hands slipped in something wet. It was sticky and warm and I knew it was not water. I felt around and determined that the puddle of liquid was about five inches long and wide. I smelled it and recoiled. It was blood. I have also noticed a smell in the kitchen and bathroom. I can not pinpoint the smell, but know that it is something familiar, something from my childhood.

Where did Dr. Fisk go? I cannot help but think that he is still here in my house. I’ve been calling his office line every hour of the day since he disappeared. I have even called the police but they no longer take my calls since I would call them multiple times a day when I first went blind.

If Dr. Fisk is gone, I have nothing. He was my only chance at recovery, my only chance to endure this life of blindness and fear. If he is gone, I am gone.

Behind My Eyelids: Entry III

January 31, 2013.

It’s getting worse. It’s becoming difficult for me to determine what is reality and what is in my head. Yesterday I encountered (or imagined?) a teenage boy in my house. He stared me down with a mischievous look on his face. There was also something sinister in his eyes. Every time I turned to walk in the other direction, I heard him running after me. No, not simply running, he was chasing me. His footsteps were loud and urgent. When I turned around, he would not be running, but simply standing their with that unnerving look on his face. Each time I turned around, he would be a little bit closer. When I reached the bathroom door and spun around, he was mere feet from me. I slammed the door and vomited.

When I took a nap later, I swear there was someone laying on my back. I could feel the pressure of their head resting on my head, their arms on my arms, and the heave of their chest on my back.

Dr. Fisk says I need to confront these “visions,” as he calls them. He is coming over tomorrow to assist me in the experiment. I believe the real reason he is coming is to make sure I don’t die of fright.

The Woman Who Watched – Entry 3

One day Charles never came back. I don’t know if something had happened to him, if he had died or moved to a different country. I was so overcome by the terrors at that point that it no longer mattered. The only thing that was important to me was trying to save my last tendril-like grasp on sanity.

I never left the house; I don’t know why. Maybe it was shame, all the staring eyeballs I encountered when I used to wander the town at first. Or maybe part of the terrors caused me to be stuck, stuck in one place, stuck alone, stuck to face myself. Maybe it was all a grand scheme, some karmic way of getting back at me for the lie of a life I led. But it didn’t matter. There were always groceries on my table, all the things I needed would appear each morning. I don’t know where they came from, I had always assumed that Charles sent them. Now that he’s gone, I’m not so certain anymore.

I don’t know how long it went on. My memories from the time are mangled and confused. One day I started to rip out my own eyeballs, then passed out from the pain.

I awoke seconds later to the sound of screams, I thought my own. I felt my face, and it was in-tact despite the damage I had tried to inflict. I sighed. I still heard screaming, but my mouth wasn’t open. This made sense to me, stuff like this had been happening regularly so I didn’t think much of it. There was blood on the floor. I smiled.

Hands grabbed my throat. As I whipped my head around, I saw a man. His eyes were all but gouged out. It was the most terrifying episode of the terrors I had encountered yet! I stood there and let myself be strangled by this strange apparition. Suddenly, my heart leapt to my throat as my scrambled memories re-arranged themselves !

I could see myself performing the horrible deed !

my screams mingled with his my airway was almost completely shut by the strength of his hands my air was gone but I could still scream as I head-butted his mangled slipery bleeding face and

I don’t remember much else.

The Woman Who Watched – Entry 2

I don’t know where they came from. Maybe the cabin, maybe the land the cabin was on, or maybe even the whole town suffered from them. The terrors were something truly awful…

They came in the form of nightmares, but nightmares you couldn’t escape. Even in the broad daylight, they were there. They were just prominent enough to drive you insane, yet just subtle enough so that if you were to seek professional help, you would certainly be locked up for the sick, horrible, twisted, dark forest of evil your mind contained.

I could feel it in the air I breathed, and I know that Charles felt it too. We never talked about it, even as it slowly took over my life.

The Woman Who Watched – Entry 1

“Sassy Sarah”, they used to call me. The nickname stuck all through grade school, high school, and even college…college, that is, until i dropped out my sophomore year. Now that I’m older, I’ve seemed to have lost that “sassiness” that made me so desirable to my male acquaintances at the time. But I was so young and stupid back then…now I spend my time sitting alone in my hillside cabin, wallowing away in puddles of regret at my poor judgment that landed me in the situation I’m in now. Oh, I was such a romantic…Ha! I look back and scoff at my younger self until I am jolted to the present where I simply break down and cry.

My sophomore year at the local college was a “big” year for me, or so I thought at the time. I was set up to conquer the world! Or so I thought. I had become the mistress of a hot-shot politician–you know, one of those guys who came from “deep pockets” and whose parents specifically bread him to become a politician, their politician. I remember meeting him for the first time–this older man, so wise and charismatic. I really felt there was a deep, soul-melding connection between us. Age was never an issue. When he would say that the only thing keeping us from being together forever was his wife, and that he would divorce her for me when the time was right, I believed. I became a “kept woman”, living in his “secret” escape that he would venture to whenever he could find the time.

It was great fun, at first–we thought we were being so sneaky and secretive. It was like we were part of a secret society, one in which we were the only two members. We would play childish games in the middle of the night, games like tag and hide-and-go-seek. Hide-and-go-seek was my personal favorite;  I would be squeezed into some dark nook or corner, anxiously listening as his steps would come closer or venture farther away. I especially loved when he would sneak up behind me and scare me, right before whisking me away to waltz with him in the moonlight.

Then the terrors came.

About.

Fear. The one thing that rules us all. People say they lead lives of ambition, love, and courage, but think about it. Where do these supposed “driving forces” originate? Ambition stems from Fear, the Fear of failure and rejection. Love stems from Fear, the Fear of being alone and misunderstood. Courage stems from Fear most of all, because without Fear, courage could not exist. This is not to claim that ambition, love, courage, and other such things are not real, but rather to make the following point: Where would all those be if it wasn’t for Original Fear? Fear, the sensation that leaves you gasping for breath with eyes bulging in panic as you realize that no matter how fast you run, it isn’t fast enough. Fear, the shock that comes when you find that everything and everyone you trust has been against you all along. Fear, that overwhelming panic that leaves your mind numb and your

mouth

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Behind My Eyelids: Entry II

January 29, 2013.

The police arrived at my house today because of a noise complaint. The neighbors heard me screaming as if my life were in danger. And I truly believe it was! I awoke to a woman sprawled naked on my ceiling. Her arms and legs were spread open wide, almost to the point of contortion. She stared down at me with an enormous smile on her face. They are always smiling. I gasped and covered my eyes. All I could hear was the sound of her smile broadening wider and wider. The worst part is that covering my eyes only helps temporarily. Just as she came back into view, she fell dramatically and very quickly from the ceiling. She stopped in mid air with her face just inches from mine. Her dark red hair fell onto my face. Her smile opened and I could see her black tongue and smell her sour breath. I was paralyzed with fear. Her limbs began to shake violently as if she were a rag doll. Her arms and legs looked extra long as she flailed, her head bobbing back and forth, smiling the whole time. All I could hear was her quick gasps of breath as she shook. Her body rocked so vehemently that I could hear her bones breaking and teeth cracking. I screamed until I fainted. I’m starting to question if these figures are merely figments of my imagination. Her matted hair, her sallow skin, her warm breath…it was all so real…

Behind My Eyelids: Entry I

January 28, 2013.

It is strange how we revert back to our childhood selves when truly, deeply frightened. If there is one thing I have learned though this horrible experience, it’s that I am a cowardly, weak man. I used to wonder how I would react to a life-threatening situation, perhaps a natural disaster, an intruder, or a criminal holding me at gunpoint. It was important for me to believe that I would be brave in such a situation. I imagined I would’t hesitate to use force, that I wouldn’t go down without a fight. I now know that I was always incapable of such honorable behavior. For now that I am truly afraid for the first time in my sixty years of life, I cower at the tiniest sound, be it a rustle in the trees or creak in the house. I am in a constant state of fear, both day and night, and it is unbearable.

Dr. Fisk has instructed me to keep an audio journal to record my inner state since the accident. It has been four weeks now. Four weeks of complete and utter blindness. Every night I dream that I am blind, only to awake with a jolt to the realization that my nightmare is my reality. I cannot see. I cannot be alone out of fear that there is some malevolent person (or thing) standing but 2 feet from me. I had to learn the difficult way that blindness is my ultimate fear.

Yesterday I could have sworn that I heard the front door creak open. From behind my eyelids I saw a man with a black face and black curls smiling at me as he peeked around the door. I fell to the floor gasping, and once I could breath, managed to feel my way to the kitchen drawer where I kept my sharpest knives. (I swear the black-haired man hovered directly behind me the enter time). I then crawled to the bathroom, locked the door, and hid in the shower for God knows how long. I used to do the same thing as a child when my mother left me alone in the house. I sat there shaking and drenched in sweat, clutching the knife in front of my face. I sat like that for a few hours until I dozed off to sleep. To wake up and not be able to simultaneously see the sunlight, or any light for that matter, is the most horrific experience. I don’t know how much longer I can endure this world of darkness.